GOOD

dog words

The Planet

Arf! Yamph! Woof! Yaffle! Yawp!

The history of describing (and transcribing) dog words into English. If your dog is anything like my dog, you've been privy to...

These are some far out noises.

Article originally appeared on 03.28.10.



InThe history of describing (and transcribing) dog words into English.

If your dog is anything like my dog, you've been privy to some wild, far-out noises that aren't quite covered by the words "bow-wow," "woof," "arf," and "bark." Whether he's happy, sad, bored, playful, edgy, or excited, my rat terrier Monkey makes indescribable, untranslatable sounds that only a recording could capture:

Any attempt to put Doglish into English is doomed from the start.Impossible task or not, people have been trying to describe (or transcribe) dog sounds as long as people have loved (and had to listen to) dogs. It's no secret that other languages have their own interpretations: for example, dog barks are expressed as "vov-vov," "chau-chau," "kian-kian," "hev-hev," and "guf-guf," in Danish, Russian, Japanese, Turkish, and Spanish respectively.

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